The Story of A Week

By: Rand Kaller, MS3

Description: The image shows a left hand atop a white blanket, adorned with henna, acrylic fuchsia nails tipped with purple, and a diamond wedding ring. There is a pulse oximeter on the index finger, and BiPAP tubing lays in the background.

Author’s Statement/Contextual Information: My wife returned from an out-of-town wedding and was promptly hospitalized with pneumonia complicated by an asthma exacerbation. I spent this week rotating at one hospital during the day and returning to her bedside at another hospital in the evening. Her hands, to me, throughout this, represented the hope and personhood we bring with us into the hospital; dressed in the same gown as a hundred other patients, she still had these markings from a wedding, a celebration, and time with friends, which seemed such a stark contrast to a stressful week of hospitalization.

Rand Kaller is a third-year medical student at OHSU and a former ICU nurse with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Emory University. They share a home with their lovely wife and two cats, and enjoy baking as well as creative writing.